Michelle Rhee is determined to see that every legislature is taken over by hard-right Republicans who support her campaign against teachers and public schools.
One of her current targets is Alabama.
Here is where she is sending money. All but one of those listed below are Republicans, except Patrick Sellers, who challenged a Democratic incumbent and lost. Governor Bentley returned the $5,000 contribution.
As of current reporting, StudentsFirst has contributed a total of $100,000 to nine candidates in Alabama this year. The recipients, as pulled from AlabamaVotes.gov, are here:
Contributor Amount ContributionDate RecipientName
STUDENTSFIRST $15,000.00 05/23/2014 BARRY RAMON SADLER SR. (Sadler outspent incumbent state school board member Betty Peters10-1, and he lost.)
STUDENTS FIRST $20,000.00 11/15/2013 CHARLOTTE BORDEN MEADOWS (Meadows ran for a house seat. She lost.)
STUDENTS FIRST $15,000.00 05/21/2014 CYNTHIA MCCARTY (McCarty ran for open seat on state school board. She won.)
STUDENTSFIRST $10,000.00 06/02/2014 GERALD DIAL (Dial is incumbent state senator. He won primary, faces opposition in November.)
STUDENTSFIRST $10,000.00 05/09/2014 JIM H MCCLENDON (incumbent house member who challenged incumbent Republican state senator and won.)
STUDENTS FIRST $15,000.00 06/01/2014 MARY SCOTT HUNTER (Incumbent state school board member. She won.)
STUDENTSFIRST $5,000.00 04/24/2014 MICHAEL G. HUBBARD (Speaker of the House. He spent more than $1 million on his re-election in june and beat a Republican primary challenger. Faces Democratic opponent in November. Not a friend of public schools or teachers.)
STUDENTSFIRST $5,000.00 05/22/2014 PATRICK SELLERS (aDemocrat who challenged aDemocratic incumbent in Birmingham and lost.)
STUDENTS FIRST $5,000.00 10/11/2013 ROBERT BENTLEY (Incumbent Governor running for re-election. Returned the money.)
STUDENTSFIRST $10,000.00 05/21/2014 STEVE DEAN (Republican challenger to Republican incumbent. Dean lost.)
STUDENTS FIRST $2,500.00 02/21/2013 STORMING THE STATE HOUSE POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE (this PAC is operated by Mike hubbard, speaker of the house. Studentsfirst gave him money on feb. 21 of 2013, and the House passed the Alabama Accountability Act (Alabama’s voucher bill) on Feb. 28, 2013.)
STUDENTS FIRST $15,000.00 05/30/2014 WILLIAM E HENRY (an incumbent Republican who won his race.)
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The state supe is a hero. He REFUSES to evaluate teachers by test scores.
Agreed! Dr. Bice is a maverick who fights for students, not the status quo or politics. I would follow him anywhere.
Maybe I’m naive, but is it legal for a school that receives taxpayer money to contribute (that money) to political campaigns?
Students First isn’t a school. It’s a “reform” organization that goes around telling everyone that their schools are broken, and to fix them with laying off experienced teachers, hiring TFA, ranking schools by test scores, etc. It donates a lot of money to campaigns. Even though Michelle Rhee, who started SF, claims to be a Democrat, most of the candidates that get money from this organization are Republicans.
..but she doesn’t rank them by test scores; she ranks them by how much of her bull$hit they utilize. Up is down; down is up in Rheeland.
OOPS. My bad! Thank you, Threatened Out West, for the clarification.
Well, we knew she was bound to turn up somewhere after pulling out elsewhere. Keep spreading the news/facts about her. She, a democrat, contributing mightily to republicans who are in with her agenda. I particularly enjoy how she rates schools that have failing grades as good because they employ her ideas. She is a nut case. Aren’t the republicans done with her yet? She is an embarrassment to them, no? Oh, money talks. Right.
Ugh.
I just had friends in education leave NC for Alabama. Hope things don’t turn bad for them.
It all depends on where in Alabama they have gone to Joanna. I certainly hope it wasn’t Huntsville.
Dr. Bice really does support teachers and students in Alabama. However, I do not think that he realizes that the Common Core Standards are developmentally inappropriate. He really wants to believe the “College and Career Ready” jingle because he genuinely wants Alabama’s students to be college and career ready. Governor Bentley, who appointed Dr. Bice to be State Superintendent, as well the Republican legislators pulled a fast one on him whet hey passed and approved the Alabama Accountability Act last year. Governor Bentley has visited the charter schools in New Orleans and has previously said that he would support trying charter schools in Alabama. So far, Legislators have not allowed for charter schools, but I am afraid that they will ok them in the next legislative session. Thank goodness Betty Peters held her spot on the state education school board. Mary Scott Hunter won her election by a narrow margin; I suspect that if Democrat voters in her district had come out to vote and supported her opponent, her opponent would have won. I can’t remember his name, but he was against Common Core, and would have added a third Common Core opponent to the state school board had he won. There were no Democrats running in that district and no democrat candidates in that area running for anything, though, so I guess they didn’t feel like crossing over. Michelle Rhee came to Birmingham when touring after the start of school last year. The Mayor of Hunstville who appointed that city’s Broad Superintendent is making noises about running for Governor when Bentley’s second term is up, although that won’t be for awhile as he is just now finishing up his first term.
Col. Parsons was his name and he is a great person….I am a democrat but I crossed over to vote for him. It would have been a major blow to the privatization movement here in Alabama had he won.
As far as your comments about Dr. Bice not knowing about the developmentally inappropriate standards I disagree. He was an educator previously….a special education teacher….he knows exactly how important it is to have developmentally appropriate material and he knows this isn’t it.
The reason Alabama doesn’t have charters yet is because we have the good old boy network wanting to bring their own version of charters in that they can benefit from fighting against corporate interests from outside of Alabama that want to do it their way. These two factions are literally fighting over the dying carcass of our public schools here in Alabama while everyone sits by and watches.
Why can’t Alabama use the information that folks like Dr. Ravitch, Anthony Cody, the national BATs and many others give us to head off what is happening? We can just about predict their next move and yet we sit here acting ignorant to it all. Folks in Alabama, particularly in our poorest schools….should be fighting mad and taking it to the streets. Our predominately black schools are NO BETTER OFF then they were in the 60’s….and yet….here we sit doing very little at best.
If you decide to join the fight in Alabama please join the AL BATs or find my through my facebook page http://www.facebook.com/SupportOurSTudents
StudentsFirst is just like stand for children in Colorado. Stand supported five republicans for state legislature in 2012. All five lost. Just more examples of dino’s. It’s certainly not about the students. It certainly is about politics and money.
And let’s not forget the only way her district (Washington DC) could get passing scores when she was the super was with massive cheating by the teachers
Did you read this report from Michelle Rhee’s latest “Think Tank”:
http://tntp.org/publications/view/retention-and-school-culture/shortchanged-the-hidden-costs-of-lockstep-teacher-pay
Thought you and your readers might be thrilled to read that the alternative to the “lockstep” method of compensation was… wait for it: pay based on performance and …bonuses for instructors at high-need schools and critical subjects!
It is disheartening to see all of these comment from folks so dedicated to Dr. Bice. He is a nice man, personally I like him….but he is also a politician and an appointed leader. He has many influences and no longer is his primary concern our children. In an atmosphere like we have here in Alabama I’m sure it would be nearly impossible for anyone to keep the children first. He can talk all day about how he ‘feels’ about high stakes testing and tying teacher’s evaluations to testing but I guarantee you 100%…..teachers evaluations will be tied to test scores. This isn’t about Dr. Bice’s personal opinions or wants…it’s about the wants of the legislators and lobbyists. The delicate house of cards he has built between what people want to hear and what is actually happening will soon start to crumble.
It’s also frustrating seeing all of this attention put on StudentsFirst and virtually none on the Black Alliance for Educational Options. They are as big a threat in Alabama as StudentsFirst is. In actuality they have partnered together here in Alabama and I feel I know why. A majority of the black community is against charters. They feel the BAEO can get their feet in the doors of the black officials and ministers easier than StudentsFirst can. BAEO takes money from the same folks as StudentsFirst…Walton and Gates, etc. They push to weaken teacher tenure and neuter what little bit of the AEA is left. One of StudentsFirst leading ground organizers here in Alabama recently left and went to work for the BAEO Alabama chapter to help boost their foothold here, his name is Duncan Kirkwood…..he is best of friends with Charlotte Meadows of Studentsfirst. Thank god Mac Buttram was defeated in Culman, that was a big blow to the BAEO….and I’m glad to see a few losses on the StudentsFirst side of things too as Dr. Ravitch pointed out above.
Both the BAEO and SF has an uphill battle in Alabama….and those of us on the side of strong public schools for ALL students can win this battle against them but not without diligence and a strong voice.
We need more advocates in our Alabama BAT group and you can also contact me through my fb page http://www.facebook.com/SupportOurStudents if you want to truly get involved in Alabama.
Is there anyone who wants to publish how much the Alabama Education Association gives to political candidates during each election cycle…..the totals are near the millions
Duncan, does the Alabama Education Association spend as much as Michelle Rhee or the Waltons? When people like that want to destroy your profession, you should spend whatever you can afford to stop them.