The billionaires and moguls and titans are at it again.
They desperately want to buy the last seat on the Los Angeles school board, which will be decided in a run-off on May 21.
The contenders are Monica Ratliff, a teacher, and Antonio Sanchez, who used to work on the staff of L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.
The Big Money wants Sanchez. Just as they assembled a war chest to beat Steve Zimmer, they are now piling up dough to crush underfunded Ratliff.
NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg put in $350,000. Los Angeles billionaire Eli Broad added $250,000. Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst added $100,000. It is expected that they will collect $1 million or more to beat Ratliff.
“In the primary, money spent by or for Sanchez outpaced Ratliff’s spending by a ratio of about 84 to 1.”
The UTLA endorsed both candidates and gave Ratliff $1,000.
Zimmer beat the billionaires. Can Ratliff pull off an upset too? She will probably be outspent this time 100-1.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I may sound naive – but is this for real?
BOE nominations run like presidential campaigns with donations of this size? Is this something that only happens in cities? Bloomberg has lost his fascist mind!
Now the question is “What are the rest of you going to do to stop Sanchez? The billionaires are lining up on the other side. UTLA did not put Zimmer over the top for the 52.1%. Jeneen Robinson was asked to prevent the “Nader Factor” which happened in Florida which in the end allowed Bush not Gore to be prez. If Nader had dropped out his 5,000 of so votes would have gone to Gore. His ego, not pragmatism, ruled the day. There was no way he could have won the race for prez. So, learning that lesson, Jeneen understood and asked her 8,000 supporters to support Zimmer to prevent a real tragedy. Go look at the votes and think and divide and you will see what I am talking about. Now that option does not exist in the most important board seat to stop the corporate privatizer billionaires. Will any of you out there help to defeat the billionaires in this most important board race in the only really large school district in the U.S. still run by a real, not mayoral controlled, board of education. She went against about $1.3 million with only $14,000 in the primary and was only 10% behind. Not bad. Now, in order to finish off the job of trying to totally control the board money from the wealthiest people in the world is coming to destroy that hope. Monica Ratliff needs your support whatever it is to help bring back sanity. If she is elected there will then be a rational 4-3 vote.
Would that every voter and every educator in LA would believe you and adhere to your post. Ratliff has only raised a few thousand dollars so far.
Sanchez has a donated fortune, mainly from the oligarchs. Bloomberg just gave him $350,000. Where are Geffen and Spielberg and Streisand and all the Hollywood liberal donors who all live in LA?
As a semi retired lifetime educator, I donated as much as possible. But why is money not being sent to the Ratliff campaign by all of the educators, local and out of state, in small amounts? This is how Obama raised his funding in his initial run for Prez.
Ratliff is sterling. A civil rights attorney, a Latina, from Columbia Law School who decided to teach in the inner city in LA. She would be a huge asset on the Board of Ed.
Sanchez is a 31 year old shill for Broad/Rhee/Villaraigosa. I hope every educator remembers this election season when our Mayor runs for Governor. Thumbs down. But Jerry Brown is fighting the good fight to direct tax money to the inner cities.
Read the LA Times article by Howard Blume in today’s paper.
Is Brown directing money to the inner cities to help the poor, or to make more money available for charter operators? Deasy (privatizer) supports this plan…
http://laschoolreport.com/brown-vows-not-to-back-down-on-education-funding-plan/
Re: “Where are… Streisand and all the Hollywood liberal donors who all live in LA?”
Scroll down to 11th picture:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2315967/Wisecracker-Chief-Jay-Z-Michelles-bangs-Republican-rivals-come-President-Obamas-hilarious-White-House-Correspondents-Dinner-speech.html
$1,000,000.00 was sent to Kira Orange Jones to defeat New Orleans incumbent for the Louisiana BESE Board (Board of Elementary and Secondary Education)!
>________________________________ > From: Diane Ravitch’s blog >To: libbamcenery@yahoo.com >Sent: Friday, April 26, 2013 7:28 AM >Subject: [New post] Billionaires Try (Again) to Buy Key L.A. School Board Race > > > > WordPress.com >dianerav posted: “The billionaires and moguls and titans are at it again. They desperately want to buy the last seat on the Los Angeles school board, which will be decided in a run-off on May 21. The contenders are Monica Ratliff, a teacher, and Antonio Sanchez, who used” >
LAUSD is the second largest school district in the U.S. after Bloomburg’s N.Y. It has 13% of all students in California. 1/2 of all students in L.A. County. The yearly budget is about $5.8 billion. They have lost in 10 years 156,000 in enrollment. 10 years ago when there were 156,000 more students only 14,500 or 2% did not come to school everyday today it is 117,000 or 17%. And they call themselves the “Reform Board.” You know that phrase “Reform.” Reform in their “Orwellian World” means Deform and Destruction. Do not forget the $27 billion in construction money. Now are we talking money? This is the largest dollar construction project on the planet. LAUSD constructs or 2-3 times the going rate for school construction according to the Jan. 2008 California Office of Public School Construction study on school construction costs. After I produced my 2003 spreadsheet from their Strategic Execution Plan (SEP) they suddenly until today leave out the numbers to analyze. Now it is just a pretty color picture book with no useful information. On top of that they want to use construction bond money to buy tablets. That is illegal in California as the law states that no equipment can be bought with construction bond money unless it can last 10 years. Do you think they can do that? Now do you see why they are pouring in the money?
George, I have learned to love you. Hope all our locals are paying close attention to your every word. It is all so clear to those of us who still have critical thinking skills.
But Arnie’s 405 freeway widening seems a competing boondoggle.
The LA Times endorsed Ratliff:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/endorsements/la-ed-end-lausd-district-6-20130426,0,5139328.story