Peter Greene has a very engaging post about the insanity of Marshall Tuck’s run for State Superintendent of California.
Greene can’t believe that Tuck believes what he is saying and promising. If he delivers, he will destroy public education in California, get rid of experienced teachers, somehow find inexperienced replacements for them, and then what? Then Californians will know that the whole reformster agenda is a fraud. Maybe, just maybe, Greene thinks, it would be a good thing to have this expose happen.
What qualifies Tuck to run the state education department? Well, he was an investment banker. The rich and powerful like him. He has friends in Hollywood. He thinks no teacher should have tenure. He failed as leader of Green Dot. He failed running the mayor’s takeover schools. That means he is an expert on reform.
Greene writes:
Tuck is popular with the Let’s Kick Teachers’ Asses crowd, which is why this election matters. Current Superintendent Tom Torlakson pissed off a lot of powerful people by deciding to challenge the Vergara ruling, and if elected Tuck will put an end to that toot suite.
I confess to being a little fascinated by the Tuck candidacy, because what is the end game here? I mean, unless he’s an idiot, he has to know that the same smoke and mirrors that create the illusion of success for charter schools cannot be scaled to the state level, and his bold claims that he can raise California’s educational standings will fail hugely. “Throw out difficult students who make school look less successful” only works if there are other schools to send them to. Maybe he has figured out how to scale charter success with, say, a plan to push all low-performing California students into Nevada. But I’m doubtful. He has to know that he cannot deliver any of the results he is promising.
So if he’s not an idiot, what’s the plan here? Just get in there and strip as much money as possible out of the system and walk away? Destroy the teaching profession and public education and just hope nobody notices or cares? The usual reformster profile is to find yourself a job where you aren’t accountable to much of anybody and where the reporting of results is entirely under your control. But Tuck wants to be responsible to the state voters for an entire state system whose results will be pretty hard to hide.
If this guy is elected, shame on the voters of California. Their children will get what they don’t deserve.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The point is that students are currently getting what they don’t deserve. I’m embarrassed that my own child went through L.A. Unified Schools because of their current reputation. Torlakson gives honorary doctorates to administrators in such places as Compton. Some, and I say some schools are broken beyond repair in California. Probably why all the major newspapers have endorsed Tuck, and why he has my vote. For years we’ve been screaming that we want parents involved in their children’s education. Parents pull the trigger (in Adelanto) and everyone bemoans the fact that a system that was never going to change is changing. Good luck appealing the Vergara decision if Torlakson does win in this state.
How are your child doing? Did LAUSD ruin his/her life? As much as I criticize some LAUSD policies, there are fantastic teachers there. By voting for Tuck, you are voting for privatization of public education. You are encouraging the idea that the business model of squeezing the most profit out of an enterprise is the model we want to educate children.
“. . . you are voting for privatization of public education.”
Well, (s)he’s a self proclaimed “changemaker”! (which I think any fast food order taker could claim to be)
Looks like Torlakson has the votes of the unions and the politicians and Tuck has ALL the support of the newspapers and educated independents.
Yet you’re not embarrassed voting for a known white supremacist in Tuck, whose schools were among the very worst in the state, and who also closed critical programs for students like Health Education. You may call yourself a ‘Changemaker’, but your kind of changes were tried in Italy and Spain in the 1930s and Chile since the 1970s—turns out corporatism doesn’t work out real well for those that don’t already own society.
Don’t argue with changemaker. It likes to rheeform.
I reproduce most of a comment I posted on 1/14/2014 under the blog posting “Two Anti-Parent Revolution Parents Accused of Vandalizing School.”
[START1/14/14COMMENT]
Simply as an aid to the owner of this blog—and to head off distracting molehills of tiny correction that divert from serious discussion—I include two excerpts below re the numbers involved in the charterization of Desert Trails Elementary School.
Please go to the articles linked below (and others; google) for more context.
I simply remind those viewing this blog that the parents who voted—53!—were not only a very small minority of the original petitioners, but also voted for the huge number of parents past and future. Among the charterites/privatizers, this is called “choice” — which as Chiara Duggan has pointed out, substitutes in their minds for “voice.” And in my mind, substitutes for “democracy.”
[start quote]
Only 53 of the original 466 parent petitioners voted, and amongst those who did, the vast majority voted in favor of LaVerne Prep.
[end quote]
Link: http://www.vvdailypress.com/articles/trails-38493-adelanto-approved.html
[start quote]
But some school officials and parents expressed concern that only 53 ballots were cast in the charter election. Although the school has about 400 families with 610 students, only 180 parents who signed the petition for a charter campus during the campaign last year were eligible to vote under the parent-trigger law.
“Fifty-three votes cast the direction of the school,” said LaNita M. Dominique, president of the Adelanto teachers’ union. “That’s a little disheartening.”
[end quote]
Link: http://articles.latimes.com/2012/oct/22/local/la-me-parent-trigger-20121023
😎
[END 1/14/14COMMENT]
Parents pulled the trigger in Adelanto?
😜
Uh, thanks for helping us make this day count:
“A day without laughter is a day wasted.” [Charlie Chaplin]
😎
You’re incredible. But do you realize how utterly transparent you are, MR. PRIVATIZER?
Your letter clearly reads like something that was cut and pasted by someone who is paid to invoke dumb cliches and encourage people to hate teachers and public education in general.
Only someone on the Privatization Payroll writes the way you do. Go back and tell your funders that they are wasting their money.
Torlakson gives honorary doctorates? I didn’t realize he is a university.
And you are “embarrassed that your own child went through L.A. Unified Schools because of their current reputation”? Really, who cares about the quality of education and teachers? Reputation should be our measurement!
Rheeally, reputation is everything to the edudeformers like changemaker.
Rheeal Reputations for Rheeal Rheeformers. The new 4R’s of schooling.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCsS_IHuzkE
This mendacious video that Green references is propaganda from right-wing corporate reformers who want to privatize our schools and profit from that privatization. Follow the money to EXACTLY WHO is funding Tuck, and what their openly stated goals are… Tuck is their bought-and-paid-for tool for wiping out public education.
To put it as bluntly as possible:
— the video’s dialogue bashing Torlakson’s record are all lies;
and
— the video’s dialonge backing Tuck’s record are all lies.
These actors were either duped into participating into something they would otherwise not, had they known the truth …
OR
… they don’t believe in a public education system that is truly public… accountable to the public via democratically-elected school boards, transparent to the public, and that educates all the public.
These statistics that they are quoting are either inaccurate or taken out of context. Just for starters, they leave out that California educate more English Language Learners and children in poverty, and we are dead last in per pupil spending, and highest in class size. Tuck HAS OPPOSED MORE SPENDING for traditional public schools— i.e. Prop. 30 in 2012—that would have boosted funding to traditional public schools and lowered the class size, and funded a full, rounded curriculum.
Tuck blocks all funding for traditional public schools—and will continue to do so if elected State Superintendent of Ed.— because, while it would have helped the students attending them, his marching orders—from his corporate masters—are to starve them of funding, so as to cause them to fail, and use that failure—that he deliberately helped cause—as justification for closing them and converting them to charters and private control.
Furthermore, when you break out the statistics for middle and upper class kids, we are tops in the nation.
Torlakson taught for over two decades; Tuck has never taught a day in his life. He’s a former Wall Street banker who has been a disaster wherever he turned up in education—most prominently as the head of fellow privatizer / fellow union-buster Mayor Tony Villaraigosa’s PARTNERSHIP FOR L.A. SCHOOLS (P.L.A.S. Schools). Ask any teacher from PLAS for the endless horror stories caused by Tuck.
If elected, Tuck can and will drop the appeals to the bogus
“Vergara” lawsuit out to destroy teaching as a profession,
and bust teacher unions, and pave the way for full
privatization. The “Vergara” verdict will then stand
and go into immediate effect.
Vote for Tom Torlakson.
Tom Torlakson is being hugely outspent (5-to-1)
by the Billionaire Boys Club out to privatize
public education, so if you can please
donate to Torlakson’s campaign.
The outcome of this race will have national implications.
Here’s Tom Torlakson’s official site: (just hit the red banner
that says CONTRIBUTE)
or go here:
https://tomtorlakson.nationbuilder.com/donate_to_tom
—–
To learn more about Tuck’s fraudulence, read this by Pulitzer Prize winner Gary Cohn:
http://my.firedoglake.com/garycohn/2014/03/06/a-great-divide-the-election-fight-for-californias-schools/
Also, if you want to read how well Tuck’s Green Dot schools ACTUALLY turned out, read this post from this blog:
or read some of Robert Skeels writing on Tuck:
http://www.laprogressive.com/marshall-tuck-unqualified/
http://k12newsnetwork.com/blog/2014/05/20/markham-ms-community-to-protest-plas-policies-started-under-marshall-tuck/
http://rdsathene.blogspot.com/2014/09/dont-let-marshall-tuck-rob-california.html
A better link to that video:
What a smug, patronizing ad – typical, in fact, of the Rhee-formers attitudes to kids, their parents, their teachers and the voters.
And here’s the link to Torlakson’s site;
http://www.tomtorlakson.com/
Jack, oh my…I think Yuck Gets New Consultants is a terrible ad. It’s difficult to believe that people would vote for him after listening to that ad.
While I agree that California’s schools are in trouble because of “reformers, there’s a problem in here. Utah has far lower per pupil expenditure and far higher class sizes than any other state in the nation. I know CA is being killed with “reform,” but Utah is even worse.
A link on spending: http://247wallst.com/special-report/2014/06/03/states-spending-the-most-and-least-on-education/5/
And a link on class sizes. Take that back! California has larger class sizes than Utah. Boy, that truly sucks. Sorry, Jack and California. But Utah still spends less per pupil. We would have to spend $800 dollars more per student per year in Utah to be #50. Sad, huh?
http://www.nea.org/home/rankings-and-estimates-2013-2014.html
Who runs your legislature? There’s your answer.
One more thing:
I personally don’t bear any of these actors an
ill will. (I’m a big fan of Adam Scott’s short-lived
comedy TV series PARTY DOWN, for example, and
also Kristen Bell’s VERONICA MARS… Don’t laugh! 😉 )
However, I know that the stuff emanating
from them, and from this video are just
examples of “garbage in-garbage-out.”
“Forgive them, Father. For they know not
what they do.”
Hopefully, they will eventually see the error of their
ways, as did the late film critic Roger Ebert, who
walked out of ‘WAITING FOR SUPERMAN’ and
initially wrote stuff like:
——————————————————
ROGER EBERT:
“One problem with most schools,
(WFS Director) Guggenheim says, is that after teachers
gain tenure in two years, it is almost impossible to fire
them. In Illinois, for example, one out of 57 doctors
loses his medical license, but only one in 2,500 teachers
is fired. Some teachers flatly inform their students they
have no intention of teaching.
“Guggenheim blames the powerful American Federation
of Teachers, which is the top donor to national
Democratic campaigns and state Republican campaigns.
Any move to discipline incompetent teachers is met with
fierce resistance.
“A union teacher is a teacher for life. That teachers
themselves accept this is depressing.”
————————————————————-
Oy vey!!!
Later, after Ebert looked further into the truth
about WAITING FOR SUPERMAND, and became
fully informed about this propaganda movie,
its lies (including the entirety of the quote above)
its backers, their motives, etc. (the same people
and organizations backing Marshall Tuck, of course)…
… Ebert recanted his initial review, and conceded
that he had been utterly duped by the movie’s
lies and manipulations:
————————————————————-
ROGER EBERT: “Why maybe “Waiting for Superman”
wasn’t all that it seemed. If I’d known, my review would
have been different.””
Roger EbertVerified account @ebertchicago
Why maybe “Waiting for Superman” wasn’t all that it seemed. If I’d known, my review would have been different. http://wapo.st/dJJnv4
Reply
Retweet
Favorite
Retweets 144
Favorites 60
————————————————————-
Read about Ebert’s reversal here: (R.I.P. Mr. Ebert, btw)
To atone for and counter the effect of his misguided
review, Ebert linked to the Washington Post’s Valerie Strauss’s
thorough debunking of WAITING FOR SUPERMAN:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/school-turnaroundsreform/why-oscar-snubbed-superman—.html
Regarding the actors in the video, I also liked the work of Dax Shepherd on PUNK’D,the celebrity practical joke show. In the Tuck video above, Shepherd is the blond guy with the cap, sitting next to his blonde wife Kristen Bell (they just had a baby, btw).
In particular, Shepherd shined in the PUNK’D episode where he portrayed the vile, obnoxious patriarch of a fictional white trash family who claim to be “black sheep” relatives of actress/singer Jessica Simpson.
Simpson was in on the joke—she acknowledges Dax and his brood as actual relatives if hers, but acts to scared to resist them—while her then-husband Nick (from ‘N Sync, I believe) was the victim (sadly, they later divorced.)
Dax and his stereotypically hillbilly family–i.e. very pregnant and barefoot wife—show up in a beat-up Winnebago at Jessica and Nick’s mansion, and then obnoxiously attempt to force themselves on Nick and Jessica. They angrily demand that they be allowed to move in with them indefinitely, and in general wreak havoc in the process, breaking things, etc..
The reactions and growing anger from Nick are priceless, as is the final reveal.. “You’ve just been punk’d!”
In general, I admire the work of the above actors with the same intensity that I despise this video, what it stands for, and what it’s attempting to do… AND THAT’S A LOT!!!!
And yet another thing 😉
The folks in this video are all actors and
part of a union (and perhaps more than one)…
and they needed the protections and benefits
that belonging to a union brought to them and
to their fellow actors—especially during
the early, struggling days of their career.
(One of PARTY DOWN’s best episodes had the show’s
main characters—some struggling actors/writers
working as caterers—hanging out at Steve
Guttenberg’s house and dealing with such
struggles… watch it…it’s brilliant and funny
as Hell. Guttenberg plays himself, of course.)”
It’s hard to believe that they would knowingly ally
themselves with and give backing to someone like
Marshall Tuck, whose goals—and the openly-stated
goals of Tuck’s moneyed backers—included
destroying teacher unions and privatize public
education for profit.
Cross posted the Green essay http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/CURMUDGUCATION-California-in-Best_Web_OpEds-California-Politics_Fraud_Mayor_Schools-141005-351.html with this comment
If you are following my quick links to the shenanigans that pass as reform in the 15,880 districts, then here is a typical scenario… the fox in charge of the henhouse directing education reform… and this link, in the current NY Times, shows what happens (this time in Colorado) when the charlatans and the privateers continue their assault on education, as they did in NYC Don’t miss the-inconvenient-truth-behind-waiting-for-superman
Behind the scenes in thousands of districts in 50 states they are counting on folks not following how THEY are destroying our democracy.
Wanna see how it is done?
Read the intelligent essay on the Ravitch Blog, and the discussion among authentic educators about the crucial task of asking the right questions on tests. in fact, if you are really interested in the difference between genuine curricula for enabling learning to occur and the Common Core crap… read “Robert Shepherd: Common Core Requires Teaching Abstract Skills, Not Content”
Robert Shepherd is an experienced writer, textbook developer, curriculum designer, and loyal reader posted some interesting critiques of the way a Common Core will affect teaching and teaching materials.
Don’t let Gates con the public… share this.
One word: hubris.
I wish him luck. So many teachers have left the profession in Arizona that school districts are recruiting new teachers in the Philippines. That well will have run dry by the time Tuck takes charge (assuming that California voters have lost their minds), so where does he expect to find new teachers — Uttar Pradesh?
re: Teacher vacancies in AZ: That is what happens when you balance the state budget by sweeping the money meant for public schools into the general fund and using what little is left to let kids go to private schools with public money. We are owed 2.9 billion dollars, (court ordered) which we will never see. We will, however, be electing a real educator this November, for the Office of Supt of Public Instruction, which will be a vast improvement over the last 12 years.
I’ve often thought about how this era will be viewed decades from now. If you could get in the BACK TO THE FUTURE DeLorean and go ahead to the 2020’s or 2030’s or beyond, I predict that you would see the following.
In the past, celebrities were also duped into supporting other atrocities that, and they lived to regret that support.
This “Education Reform Era” will be viewed with the same disgust and shame that we now view
— the Salem Witch Trials
— the Japanese internment during World War II
— the hysterical, anti-Communist blacklist
— the Vietnam War
— Gulf War II, or George W’s March 2003 invasion of Iraq, and all that followed
or, to go to another country…
— the mid-1960’s “Cultural Revolution” in Communist China.
Regarding the blacklist comparison, Michelle Rhee and her ilk will be viewed in the same light at Joe McCarthy and his enablers.
Regarding the Vietnam war comparison, Arne Duncan will be viewed in the same light at Robert McNamara (and others) who claimed that he was fighting the spread of god-less Communism, yet fronting for DuPont, the Defense industry, and other corporations that were enriched by the U.S. occupation of Vietnam.
In Arne’s case, he’s claiming that unlike the greedy, lazy teachers, he and his allies are the people who truly care “about the kids” (i.e. his sickening statement in support of the Vergara lawsuit), when he’s actually doing the bidding of the money-motivated privatizers and union-busters.
These vulture capitalists constantly need more and fresh “financial flesh” devour. After enriching themselves during the dot-com era and the dot-com bubble exploded in the late 1990’s, they moved on to Wall Street, demanding de-regulation and decreased oversight (and we know how well THAT turned out … Remember the meltdown of September 2008?)… and then also pushed George W. to implement de-regulation and decreased oversight of the housing and loan industry, and they got rich during the sub-prime loan bubble… and now that they’ve drained every drop from those spheres, it’s those same folks who now see the trillion-dollar public education sector as ripe for raping.
Go watch the DVD of “THE WOLF OF WALL STREET”… those are the folks that seek to profit from the privatization of public education… witness their motives, greed, mocking cynicism, and despicable tactics… and they’ve got Arne Duncan, neo-liberal Democrats, and the media (idiots like Campbell Brown) fronting for them… claiming that these billionaires and Wall Street hedge fund managers care more about the well-being of children of the middle and working classes than the over-worked, poorly-compensated teachers who spent 7 or more hours every ding-dong day dedicating their lives to those same children.
Tuck is running for a state-level legislative post. The end game for him is to affect state-level education legislation. This is a very dangerous proposition. Tuck winning would not just involve him applying charter-school tactics to some state level — as pointed out that’s not really going to work. This is a sea-change and the prospect of it ought to make all of us very queasy….
I had to laugh, though this isn’t really funny. Tit for tat.
Greene, 2014
“Maybe he has figured out how to scale charter success with, say, a plan to push all low-performing California students into Nevada.”
Sacramento Bee, 2013
” Over the past five years, Nevada’s primary state psychiatric hospital has put hundreds of mentally ill patients on Greyhound buses and sent them to cities and towns across America…
About a third of those patients were dispatched to California”
Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/04/14/5340078/nevada-buses-hundreds-of-mentally.html#storylink=cpy
“‘Throw out difficult students who make school look less successful’ only works if there are other schools to send them to.”
Wait, wait…hold on…I think I may have figured it out and come up with their plan here!
I read in the NY Times today that California voters may choose to incarcerate fewer people in this year’s election. And that would mean a lot of Empty Cells in California’s prisons!
See where they might be going with this…plan?
If Tuck and his backers and cronies win, they won’t NEED other schools for the “less successful students” to be demoted to; there will now be space in the prisons! Voila!
I have heard Torlakson twice in person, once in a smaller group with our union and I was impressed with him, he has taught high school and for quite a few years. I think he is doing the best he can under the circumstances and Brown does have a clue on some of the important stuff. Someone like Tuck would be a complete disaster for California – another Arnie who has never faced a classroom of students but who knows what is best – which is really what is worse because this reform stuff does not work, it only causes disruption, stress and burnout. I will be telling all friends and family to vote for Torlakson.
Tom is pro labor and when Duncan came to Cali pushing ccss, the givernir and tom stood their ground. They reminded him of the 10th amendmant and he was quoted in LATimes as being confused about their resistance. With this said, they both have allowed LAUSD and Deasyy to purge 9000 teachers and replace then with TFA . The drama is unrelenting and while Jerry Brown must be commended for resuing our tanking economy and leadung the way in the push up min wage , there is simpy no euse for allowing the LA school system, CTC and the unions get away with what amounts to racketeeing . I supose it simply costs too much to hold these criminal feet to fire and ince they get after ine thing other things will surely timboe forward with scandalour reverberations that will taint any political puppetry cinnected to it. The last GOV allowed the reformy excess that permeates the bloated top down crony corrupted mess that is LAUSD .
Throw In more money than the city generates , the cunning legal sharks and secrets ( like feds taking-over special ed, EL. Etc that portray an imoervious stature ) , and it is hard to issue an indictment of two leaders who inherited the Deasy problem and have dealt with his hypocritical tantrums everytime he went to Sacramento yo impose his will on the laws that govern tenure . I think he was desperate to see the law change since he was violating it to undermine teachers .
Brown must. bes catching on by now, as there is suddenly a teacger shortage , the interns are so thick, rumor hs it Deasy violated NCLB and tried to hide it by mislabeling interns . The implications are that Deasy also violated propm 30 which requires that teachers be reinstated were also violated . A litany of stay ed codes have been ignored to usurp veterans. While rookie teachers in E4E or teach +’agree to take an oath swearing off their rights to tenure , it is audacious Deasy who props these cult like cookie cutter idiots so they can whine-because they think teachers with decades on the job deserve the pinks slips . While they arrogantly assume they are better teachers after sippijng too much kool aid , we know better
Tom has limited influence in some of this but he and Brown are not likely to thwart the emerging hybrid. They have not intervened ith ipad horrors, nir have they stated publicly that VAM is a scam . Though Tom presently has adopted an aversion to too any tests , I think he realizes it. Is a close race and Tom wants to make sure he wins the teachers’ support. Announcing an appeal of Vergera has been helpful to both men, i think Tuck enjoys vocal local support but will have fewer votes in rural parts of thr state . We are seeing indepents make a respectable show in primaries so politics will get much more interesting
The plan? Juke the stats, disburse fundung to assure cronie capitalists thrive, insure CCSS is adopted with a lot of ed tech , which he will cultivate investirs for in his new position. He will accept credit, blame for tenure being redacted and get more more nore charter schiols to replace publuc schools. These will all be filled with TFA temps, and he abd Rgee will inflict ther wills on policy and funding with help from Briad, Kevin J and moonbeam whonhas become one with these teacher sacrafices because of $ and the magnatude of thus corruption . It will be ugly, but we are not so sure he can topple Tom a better choice but not as promising as the woman who shook things up in the primary. Education is an issue that has become crucial to political Success . LA is a fraction of the state and actually is low turn out as a rule. Northern CA is a much more conservative brand of hippy liberals . Theysee the assault on schools as another corporate affront.mit is , ironically, something the right winging its agree with them on . A lot of Libertarians and independents, growing green party and progressive faction too. All are against common core , unimpressed by charter schools and adamant about $15 min. Wage. deasy and Tuck have support frin investors and contractors as well as other powerful crony types who see tests as a way to make themselves richer while oretending ti be philanthropists .i am sickened by how far they let greed take them i pray they all lose their astericks whencommin core tanks and knocks Bill Gates back to earth again.,with luck he will land on his advocate Randi Weingarten
Hi Again, Just finished sending off my reply to your recent request for info on links to the Nov. election issues. Then I remembered a link I had received from Diane Ravitch’s Blog re: one of the candidates running for State Superintendent of Schools, Marshall Tuck. Some things to consider (and take some tome to look through the included Comments to the original post.
Hank