We remember Molly Ball as the writer for The Atlantic who tried to persuade us in 2012 that Michelle Rhee really truly is a liberal and was taking over the Democratic Party. Of course, since then, we have seen StudentsFirst make campaign contributions to rightwing Republicans and to a handful of Democrats who support vouchers. We even saw her select a Tennessee legislator who sponsored notorious anti-gay legislation (“Don’t Say Gay”) as “reformer of the year.”
Now the same Molly Ball has another article, also in The Atlantic, plaintively wondering why liberals “hate” Cory Booker. I don’t hate Cory Booker.
I don’t agree with his views on education, but I don’t hate him.
But education is the issue that is missing from Molly Ball’s article, except at the very end, when she acknowledges the reasons that liberals have a Cory Booker problem:
“Nonetheless, it seems clear Booker will not be riding to Washington on a wave of esteem from national progressives. Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee and a former communications director for the New Jersey Democratic Party, said there’s still time for Booker to earn liberals’ esteem. “There’s a healthy skepticism, given his record of cozying up to Wall Street donors, defending corporations like Bain Capital, and supporting Michelle Rhee’s extreme school-privatization agenda,” Green said. “That said, there’s a real willingness to take a second look, given his airtight commitment to oppose any Grand Bargain that cuts Social Security benefits and his openness to actually increasing those benefits.” Booker, he said, would “earn a lot of goodwill” if he committed to the PCCC-backed proposal to expand those programs. For now, though, the skepticism remains.”
At least, Molly Ball is now willing to concede that Michelle Rhee has an “extreme school-privatization agenda,” which is not exactly representative of the Democratic party.
But she never acknowledges that Booker has views that are closely aligned with Rhee. He supports privatization via charters and vouchers. He was chair of the board of the Wall Street hedge-fund managers’ Democrats for Education Reform (DFER), which pushes for privatization and high-stakes testing. He brought Mark Zuckerberg to Newark and welcomed Teach for America, the Goldman Sachs’ construction of a special housing village for TFA, etc. etc.
Critics of Cory Booker don’t “hate” him. But they wonder why he hates public education and the people who teach in public schools.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I have never viewed Michelle Rhee as a liberal, esp in her attitudes about school privatization. She certainly has a lot of Republican governors on board. This issue needs to be looked at with clarity.
What is happening to education is a microcosm of what is happening to our middle class. Corporate take over. Jobs phased out. Failure to look at, let alone care about, the poor, or those that have lost their jobs, or the middle class.
I hate no one. But I find Cory Booker a fraud, simultaneously mouthing empty progressive rhetoric whilst defending Bain Capital and other Wall St contributors to his political future, gutting public education and housing budgets, and handing nearly $2 billion over to private developers for arena and other public projects that the citizens of Newark had no direct voice on… all amid the backdrop of staged acts of heroism with convenient press following in tow that have now become urban legend… I find him a disgusting political creature, but again, I hate no one….
Shlomo–all good points.Not person-hating, but HATE the reliance on “taking a second look” and “still time (for Booker) to earn liberals’ esteem.” Not the right wording, and not the right politician–talks out of both sides of his mouth, smiles while he’s doing it, “all amid the backdrop of staged acts of heroism…”
No, we won’t be fooled again!
I think I can say that something verging on hate rises in my heart when I think about what Cory Booker stands for. So, what does he stand for? It appears to be unadulterated neo-liberalism, unadulterated and ruthless ambition or, perhaps, some combination of those two. So, what’s not there to have some very powerful feelings about?
I agree, Diane. “Hate” is a strong word and is inappropriate in this case. As a New Jersey voter, I disagree with Mr. Booker’s education policy and have serious concerns about his relationships with Gov. Christie, Wall Street and Silicon Valley, the latter detailed by The New York Times just before the special primary. I did not vote him in that primary because I didn’t think he was the most qualified candidate. All that said, I met the man and heard him speak to students at an open public school in my suburban district; he was extremely personable and told a genuine story about growing up the child of Civil Rights pioneers. Given this background, and the fact that he attended a well-regarded suburban public high school before Stanford, I find his support of the privatization agenda baffling.
It’s worth noting that when he was interviewed on “Meet the Press” yesterday, he steered clear of mentioning specifics of the privatization agenda and touched upon education in only a very general way. This was in contrast to Gov. Jindal, who led with the inaccurate talking points of the radicals who are attempting to destroy public education and repeated them several times, as if in the retelling they would magically come true. Will Mr. Booker’s views of education evolve? One can only hope so. Right now, I think he’s listening to the wrong people.
People who want good, responsive, transparent government should question Cory Booker. Has very little to do with “liberal” and “conservative”.
When the ACLU has to sue a politician to get the emails where the fates of thousands of public school kids were discussed with Oprah Winfrey and the billionaire who did or did not invent Facebook, that’s not good government:
“The worries come across starkly in the e-mails, which Mayor Cory Booker fought to keep private after a public records law request. The American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey sued in August 2011 after the city denied the request, and a judge ruled against the city last week.
The donation has been managed by the Foundation for Newark’s Future, and about $50 million of the gift has been spent to pay for a new contract with Newark’s teachers that introduces merit pay. Millions more are expected to help fund an expansion of the city’s charter schools, which educate about 20% of Newark’s students.
A week before the September 2010 donation was public, Sandberg asked Booker in an email about spending plans for the first 100 days and details of how the mayor planned to obtain support from residents.
Booker wrote: “This is one of our biggest concerns right now as we must be ahead of the game on community organizing by next week.” A mayoral adviser outlined a rough plan to spend $315,000 on efforts such as polling, focus groups, mailing and consultants. The foundation has spent at least $2 million on such efforts since.
“MZ’s money is not going in to classrooms,” Booker aide Sharon Macklin wrote on Sept. 19, 2010. Instead, aides discussed how to allow small donors to fund individual projects, and Macklin suggested they would “get a lot of local props” for that.
Newark residents who are critical of Booker at school board meetings often say they are wary of outsiders and would rather have a superintendent who has some connection to the city. Sandberg appears to have been concerned about how the gift would be viewed. In an email to Booker and other Newark officials, she wrote that a draft of a press release about the donation used “too much ‘national’ language.”
“I wonder if we should basically make this focused on Newark with just a touch of ‘and this will be a national model,’” she wrote.”
People there were told the money was going to improve public schools. Instead it was used to pay consultants, expand charter schools and evaluate teachers.
http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2012/12/25/booker-facebook-emails-about-100-million-schools-gift-released/
Corey Booker is the poster child for the corporate arm of the Democratic Party. I don’t hate him at all. His personal story is interesting. I just don’t call corporatists like Corey Booker Democrats.
I wish Democrats would separate themselves from the corporate agenda. If you look like a Republican but call yourself a Democrat, people will vote for the Republican.
This is off topic, but a friend of mine is on one of the reform lobby groups emails lists, and he forwards the emails to me. He doesn’t know how he got one it:
“The kids are going back to school so it’s time to focus on the state of our schools. Are your kids getting the education they deserve? Are the highly effective teachers in your school being compensated fairly? Do parents have quality choices for their kids? Please join us as we watch the education reform documentary “Waiting For Superman” followed by a discussion about the movie. We’ll have popcorn, pop, and pizza for all. Free childcare is available and there is no charge for this special family night.
Date: Monday, August 26th
Time: 6:30PM-9:00PM
Location: State Farm Insurance Building (screening will take place in the basement)
Address: 55 W. Chicago Street, Coldwater, MI 49036
Please RSVP to let us know you’re coming!
If you have any question, please contact Deb Shaughnessy at 517-490-3910 or dshaughnessy@studentsfirst.org. Join other families in the area who care about educational opportunities for ALL children.
Deb
Deb Shaughnessy
Outreach Director, StudentsFirst Michigan
I thought it was interesting that Rhee is telling national media she’s meeting with teachers while the state subsidiaries of her lobby shop are selling Waiting For Superman to parents again.
I would go but I’m actually going to my local public school’s board meeting. I plan to ask if they’ve reduced social studies, civics and science instruction to devote time to test prep for Common Core, because that’s what parents are saying.
“Critics of Cory Booker don’t “hate” him. But they wonder why he hates public education and the people who teach in public schools.”
Presumably Cory Booker now will issue a statement clarifying that he doesn’t “hate” public education or public school teachers.
Actions speak louder than statements . . .
Cory Booker supports vouchers and the privatizing of public education. He has been funded by the hard right for over a decade.
He says he is a democrat. I am not sure if what he says NOW to get elected, is what he will support once he is elected.
——-
http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/cory-booker-clear-and-present-threat-public-education
Recently, I have disassociated myself from Sherrod Brown of Ohio recently because he asked me for my support of Cory Booker.
I will no longer support Mr. Brown, which is sad. I don’t know if he is yet another DFER or if he really does not know what is going on in public education today of what Cory Booker is truly about.
Cory Booker accepted $100 million dollars from Facebook, another anti-public education and anti-teacher union organization. Facebook received a $400 million dollar tax rebate because of the corporate tax loopholes it has and because it is one of the new privatized darling spy machines for the Federal government and the NSA.
Booker was featured Mark Zuckerberg and Chris Christie (another foe of public education) on Oprah:
http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/Mark-Zuckerbergs-Big-Announcement-Video
Do everything you can to work against Cory Booker.
Do NOT trust him. He blows with the wind. He is charming to the public. He is exquisitely convincing and articulate. He is highly charismatic. His oration skills match that of Hillary Clinton’s and perhaps exceeds them.
But his politics on public education are DISASTROUS.
Beware voter, parent, children, teachers, administrators, and educators . . . . .
Cory Booker deserves the disdain of liberals and progressives. Despite theatrics to the contrary, he has never been anything more than a corporate lackey serving right-wingers in both parties –much like Michelle Rhee:
“Cory Booker began his public career as an operative in the corporate-funded private school vouchers game. At the age of 33, and with only one term as a city councilman under his belt, Booker used his rich contacts in rightwing, mainly Republican circles to vastly outspend, and almost defeat, the most powerful Black politician in New Jersey, Newark mayor Sharpe James. Four years later, in 2006, after a very large Republican U.S. Attorney and now governor, Chris Christie, had put James on the path to prison, Cory Booker walked into City Hall with an army of Wall Street and Silicon Valley billionaires behind him.”
From the Black Angenda Report, “Cory Booker, the Next Black Corporate Presidential Contender”
http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/cory-booker-next-black-corporate-presidential-contender
Booker was a Manhattan Institute debutante even before the doc “Street Fight” started big money both in and outside of New Jersey courting him. His fronting for the school privatization industry is just a part of what makes him unpalatable, even repulsive: he’s devoted through-and-through to urban renewal policies designed to break open public coffers to disengaged freebooting technocratic contractors. The state of the city of Newark (a place totally unknown to his biggest fans–beyond the airport) ought to be, but won’t be, the decisive argument against him…
Apparently tens of thousands of New Jersey voters preferred him to the other Democratic candidates: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/14/nyregion/new-jersey-senate-primary.html
Having heard Mr. Booker speak and talked with him, I think he is a big fan of what public schools, district and charter, can accomplish.
You forgot to mention Booker’s support of vouchers for private schools, which is why the ultra-conservative Bradley Foundation promoted him.
Millions of voters preferred Bush but that didn’t stop Gore from getting the plurality of votes. No citizen should let who others prefer determine who they vote for themselves.
Yes, CT, we agree that people should decide for themselves. And I disagree with vouchers. However, almost 60% of Democrats who voted in the primaries voted for Mr. Booker. So this was not a situation like Mr. Gore, who won the majority of votes cast.
We’ll see what happens in the regular election.
Joe, you can keep repeating the canard that charters are public schools all you like, but that doesn’t make it so: they are private entities, privately managed, that receive public funding.
When teachers attempt to unionize at your so-called public charter schools, managment’s first lined of defense is invariably that they are private institutions.
I know your funders pay you to keep your blinders on, and that the continued existence of your organiztion depends on that, but the readers of this blog know better.
Here’s a a response both about me and about the experiences of some public school educators who have tried to create new options within district public schools.
As noted several times, no one pays me to comment here or on other blogs. We’ve been funded to do other work with district and charter public shcools by some foundations that know we disagree with some of the things they (the funders) are working on.
I do write a column for a number of Minnesota weekly papers for which I am paid a modest amount.
We have been asked by both district and charter teachers and administrators to work with them – was at meeting this afternoon involving district & charter teachers, directors and students.
More broadly, in the fall of 1971, a group of educators, community members and parents helped start a new K-12 public option as part of the St. Paul Public Schools district. Similar groups helped start new options throughout the country in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. We worked with some of those folks because of the success of the St.Paul k-12 options.
In each case, people who tried new district options within their communities (including educators in East Harlem, NYC) found that some of the strongest opposition came from some other educators.
As Shanker noted (and I’ve mentioned before), some people who have tried to within district options have been treated by some other educators as “traitors or outlaws”. Motives questioned, names called, intimidation attempted, efforts made to undermine or destroy efforts to create new options within districts. Sometimes this worked, sometimes it didn’t.
Part of the reason there is a charter movement in this country is that some educators tried, in some cases for a decade or more, to create new options within districts. They were in some cases attacked and frustrated. So some of the people active in the charter movement are former district educators. I remain a huge fan of people trying to help youngsters within district and charter public schools.
Two recent examples:
http://hometownsource.com/2013/08/21/joe-nathan-column-schools-take-steps-to-improve-school-student-safety/
http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/blog/joe-nathan/encouraging-news-education-mn-and-tfa-about-preparing-teachers-minnesota-s-schools
Joe, your response to my comment has a very low signal-to-noise ratio.
Please try to refute my main point, that charter operators claim to be private institutions, not governed by public employee law, when their overworked teachers try to unionize.
Oh, but that’s not possible is it?
Michael – charter operators vary. State laws in almost every state give unions the right to organize. Some charters are a part of school districts and their teachers are represented by unions. The New York City teachers union started either one or two charters and from the beginning their teachers were members of unions.
Some charter operators (not all but some) have made the assertion that they are not public schools. But whether it is via court or via National Labor Relations Board, the ultimate decision in every case with which I am familiar that charter teachers have a right to organize if they want to.
More failed misdirection, Joe.
The issue was not whether teachers in charter schools have the right to organize – for the time being, they still do, unless and until your funders succeed in taking care of that – but whether charters are public schools, as you falsely claim, and thus whether their teachers work under public employee labor law.
What you studiously avoided was my point that charter schools fighting unionization claim that, as private institutions, they needn’t follow the laws governing public employees.
In other words, they call themselves public schools when it serves their interests when marketing themselves and diverting money from the public schools, and private schools when it comes to maintaining a low-cost, temporary, at-will labor force.
Try again…
According to state laws, charters are public schools. Can’t say it any plainer than that. I understand you don’t like that.
What you and I think is less important than what the state laws say. That’s what they say.
Gosh, according to federal courts and the NLRB, charter schools have petitioned to be recognized as private corporations NOT subject to state labor laws, and they have won. They say they are not public. I accept their definition.
The NLRB decision that we have debated makes it clear that it regards charters as public, subject to federal law.
Since several of you have criticized some charters for having admissions tests, please explain why it is ok for district magnet schools to have admissions tests.
Clearly according to the Gallup/PDK poll, the general public sees considerable difference between the charter public school idea, which 68% support, and vouchers, which are opposed by the majority.
One of the worst uses of school choice has been to allow public schools to have admissions tests (and by the way, I say the same thing to the few charters that do have admissions tests).
“At least, Molly Ball is now willing to concede that Michelle Rhee has an “extreme school-privatization agenda,” which is not exactly representative of the Democratic party.”
As teachers, we know that sometimes the lesson takes awhile to sink in. Results are not always immediate.
You know that the Atlantic isn’t as progressive as many think. Check out the owner and his wife’s background. Charters in DC!
Also, as far as columnists go. I’m reminded of the phrase : Jack of all trades and master of none.
One last salvo. Cory talks the talk of a progressive. Let’s solve poverty, education, homelessness, jobs, etc. But that is all he does. Talk. I haven’t heard any solutions to date. The coronation awaits.
And who can forget Booker’s impassioned plea to stop demonizing private equity.
He all but endorses Chris Christie, a man who spends a good part of every day trashing middle class workers, but when private equity is attacked Booker rushes to the rescue!
“This kind of stuff is nauseating to me on both sides. It’s nauseating to the American public. Enough is enough. Stop attacking private equity, stop attacking Jeremiah Wright,” Booker toldNBC’s David Gregory. “This stuff has got to stop, because what it does is it undermines, to me, what this country should be focused on.”
yeah, because Jeremiah Wright is exactly the same as the vulture capitalists who loot US companies of value and take it home in bonuses.
My sense is that far too many “liberals” have in fact been hoodwinked by Booker. In fact, his election as mayor of Newark was marketed by “liberal” Hollywood, and represented a coalition between brain dead liberalism and the oligarchs who are his real political base.
After all, contemporary liberalism has come to be conflated with worldviews based on personal identity and lifestyle, rather than economic status and one’s relation to investment and production. Thus, the emergence of “liberals” who support the busting of teacher’s unions, the hostile takeover of the public schools (as well as lawless attacks on other countries).
If Booker is indeed hated by liberals – would that it were so – perhaps it’s because he is among the most mendacious and insipid politicians slithering around today.
And that’s no easy task, given the competition.
Far too many liberals have been hoodwinked on far too many things.
They’re backing education policy based on Milton Friedman’s economic theories and teacher evaluations that came out of a libertarian think tank:
Click to access -the-hangover-thinking-about-the-unintended-consequences-of-the-nations-teacher-evaluation-binge_144008786960.pdf
There isn’t a single thing about “ed reform” that is “liberal”. Either liberals got rolled by conservatives or they went along with this willingly and knowingly.
Besides abortion, same sex marriage and guns, in what sense is Booker “liberal”? Does anyone know?
I am happy to hear the analysis of Booker’s politics. As a resident of Central Ward of Newark and a teacher in Central Ward, I never supported Booker. His education policy of charters = corporate control of education and gentrification and land grab in Newark.
From the moment he was on city council, it has been a media game to his next political office. His first thanksgivng in office, he would only give parents the free turkeys from the NETS if they showed up for a PR photo of him throwing turkeys off a truck to the masses. It has always been about Corey and never about respect for the citizens of Newark. Those that say he won the senate primary by a landslide need to remember that there are 1.5 million registered Democrats in NJ and also look at the fact that Corey only got 78 votes in the ward that he resides. That is less than the neighbors on a city block and probably less than all the citizens of Newark that Corey rescued from a burning building.
Betty
He is grotesque and a big fat liar in most everything he does and stands for.
He will whore himself at the expense of his constituents just to further his own opportunism. He’s always been that way.
Booker is a hooker . . . . .